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Kasota is a city in Le Sueur County, Minnesota located
about halfway between the cities of Mankato and St. Peter on the eastern
side of the Minnesota River.
Minnesota State Highway 22 serves as a main route in the community. U.S.
Route 169 is nearby. According to the United States Census Bureau, the
city has a total area of 1.00 square mile (2.59 km2), all of it land. The
elevation is 807 ft (246 m) above sea level.

As of the census of 2010, there were 675 people, 293
households, and 175 families residing in the city. The
population density was 675.0 inhabitants per square mile
(260.6/km2). There were 305 housing units at an average
density of 305.0 per square mile (117.8/km2). The racial
makeup of the city was 94.7% White, 1.2% African
American, 0.6% Native American, 0.7% Asian, 0.9% from
other races, and 1.9% from two or more races. Hispanic
or Latino of any race were 2.2% of the population.

There were 293 households of which 29.0% had children
under the age of 18 living with them, 43.0% were married
couples living together, 10.6% had a female householder
with no husband present, 6.1% had a male householder
with no wife present, and 40.3% were non-families. 31.7%
of all households were made up of individuals and 7.2%
had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or
older. The average household size was 2.30 and the
average family size was 2.84.

The median age in the city was 36.9 years. 21.8% of
residents were under the age of 18; 7.9% were between
the ages of 18 and 24; 29% were from 25 to 44; 30.6%
were from 45 to 64; and 10.8% were 65 years of age or
older. The gender makeup of the city was 49.2% male and
50.8% female.

Kasota was platted in 1855. Kasota is a name derived from the Dakota
language meaning "cleared off".

On July 1, 1892, the Sontag Brothers, John Sontag and George Contant,
and their partner in crime, Chris Evans, tried to rob a train between
St. Peter and Kasota along the Minnesota River. The bandits acquired
nothing of value during this holdup, but their activities came under the
review of Pinkerton detectives and both were apprehended in June 1893.
year.

Babcock also was the first to begin quarrying Kasota limestone in and
around the city of Kasota. The Babcock Company was the chief stone
company throughout the early history of the city, and according to the
Kasota Historical Society the relationship between the stone company and
the city was less than spectacular. At one point the Babcock Company
decided to blast within the city limits. This led to the creation of the
park on County Road 21 in the town center, after the company was forced
to fill in the quarry near the homes of city residents.[citation needed]

During the 1880s, the stone industry experienced an unexpected boom.
It was during this time that C.W. Babcock took over the business from
his father. He began applying modern quarrying methods, and in 1889 he
formed a partnership with Tyrrell Swan Willcox, an immigrant from Rugby,
England, who was instrumental in promoting the use of polished Kasota
Stone for interior and exterior residential use. Much of the industry's
boom was caused by the expansion of the railroads westward, requiring
large quantities of stone for trestles and culverts.

In the early 1980s, the Babcock Company went bankrupt. The Vetter
Stone Company subsequently bought the Babcock quarries, further
expanding the business, which currently operates just outside the
Mankato city limits. The Vetters were former employees of the Babcock
Company who left to start their own company in the 1950s. The former
location of the Babcock Company plant in Kasota is now occupied by Door
Engineering, a company manufacturing industrial doors. Currently much of
the former Kasota quarry is occupied by Unimin Corporation, who mine
silica sand for hydraulic fracturing ("fracking").

Kasota stone was selected as the primary stone in the building of the
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. as well as the
Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis,
IN.

KASOTA
Township, settled in 1851, organized May 11, 1858, took the
Dakota name of its village,
in sections 29, 32, and 33, which was platted March 23, 1855, and was
incorporated on April 28, 1890. It means, as noted by Prof. A. W.
Williamson, "clear, or cleared off; the name sometimes applied by the
Dakotas to the naked ridge or prairie plateau south of the village."
This Kasota terrace of the valley drift, three miles long from north to
south and averaging a half mile wide, is about 150 feet above the river
and 75 feet lower than the general upland.